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Opinion: I Didn’t Like The Destiny Beta

After downloading the game and being very excited to play it I was left completely underwhelmed and I even got bored with Destiny and the experience that it offered. I had very high expectations for this game and I felt that it just doesn’t really deliver and I just didn’t like the Destiny Beta. While I don’t really want to make this post something that people could mistake for being entirely negative (because I don’t want to do that), I’ll first talk about what I did like about the game.

What I did like the most about the game was the visuals and graphics. I played on the PS4 and I thought that the game was one of the best looking games on the system and considering it’s just the Beta, I imagine that in the full game once you start visiting all of the worlds that it will look quite magnificent. I saw some really great vista’s and lighting effects and I did notice some great work went into the player shadows. These were all great and one of the reasons I got into the next generation so early was so that I could experience a step up in graphics from the PS3 and Destiny definitely shows what the new systems can do. I love this about the game and I’m always supportive of games that put a lot of work into their visuals.

I also appreciated the idea that you could customise your character and create someone that you will play as in the game. This is becoming a more common feature in games now. I’m not sure what the first game was that allowed you to create a character to use in game, but everyone knows Mass Effect does and in Destiny it is a similar creation method to Mass Effect. There are a few looks to choose from and hairstyles, tattoos/markings and various facial changes. It’s not super in depth though and maybe in the full game they have more options but I felt that it was a bit limited with what I could do, but it does the job. One thing I did think though, was that I spent a long time creating who I was going to play as, but then in game my character wears a helmet the whole time! I never ever saw their face at all and when looking at other players they were all wearing helmet’s to!

Here’s my character that I ended up with for Destiny

I didn’t see anything in the character creation to customise the armor and look of what you character was wearing. But later found out in the game you pick up different armor and gear that you can put on your character. Now that’s great and all, but I thought it would have been great to be able to customise your full appearance. Or at least maybe your helmet.

In the character creation there are three different classes you can choose from. These consist of the Hunter class which fights from a distance but also has a dagger for melee kills. The second class was the one I chose to play as which was the Titan class which is the described as the tank soldier that has great melee attacks and when leveled up to level 15 can also use a shield to protect allies. The final class is the Warlock class which is the magic class and uses different energy attacks to overcome their enemies. The classes in my view are good enough and I had no problem with the class I chose to play as for the Beta.

Where I felt that the game wasn’t that great though was in the actual game itself. While the graphics look great and the sound effects for the weapons are well done. The narration from Peter Dinklage who many would know from Game Of Thrones as Tyrion Lannister is possibly the worst narration I’ve ever heard in a big budget game. I don’t know what directions the staff who worked on this game provided to Peter Dinklage for the background of his character which is the ghost companion that helps you along. But it’s just bad. Nothing he says is delivered with any emotion and it sort of felt like his narration took away from the game. There was no excitement and when a boss battle came I felt no danger at all. It probably actually contributed to me thinking that the bosses themselves were underwhelming.

Another thing that I didn’t like from playing the Beta was the AI of the enemies. In the whole game I never felt like I could die, even when I was only a level 1 character…. Every time that I was in danger I noticed that I could just move back a bit and stand behind a wall or a box and no enemy would ever chase me there. If you look through my gameplay videos you can notice this on many occasions. In part one you can even see a moment where the AI didn’t even detect me arriving at the 4:30 point. Continuing on in Part 1 and at the boss area where you are told you can’t die in (can’t respawn), I found that I could just hide behind a box at the entrance and barely anyone would shoot me there. I could just keep going behind this box and reloading and no enemy came over to me at all. There was no danger here, I didn’t feel like I was going to die there and it was just way to easy.

I just reloaded behind here and used this box for cover and nobody did anything about it at all

Later on in the game you encounter an enemy known as “The Wizard” and it’s another boss you must face before you complete the area. Peter Dinklange announces through some awful voice acting and exceptional dialogue that “There’s a Wizard here, you have to kill it!” and then there are some waves of enemies and you have to kill them. I also found in this area I could just run behind the walls and nobody came over to kill me, not even the dangerous wizard.

Then after the boss battle with the Wizard Peter Dinglage talks a bit about the Hive and how it has not been on earth for many centuries and says we need to get going. There is no information here on what’s going on. I know a bit about the story that earth was wiped out and there’s aliens coming and it’s the players job to travel to different planets to stop them. The game seems to me to just be about going to different planets and shooting some enemies and then going to another planet location and shooting more enemies. There isn’t really a great depth to the story and no real characters to relate to. I really give a big plus to games that develop character properly and I think it’s the reason games like The Last Of Us are so successful or even games like GTA V. A lot of attention to the characters you talk to and interact with, even in an online game goes a long way in adding quality to the experience. Destiny, well from looking at the Beta just does not have that.

I do like that the missions are short, things seem to only go for 10-15 minutes at a time which means you can have a few quick games. I did like the idea that in this game different players who are online can accompany you in your missions. I did encounter a few different players in the game but many of my missions were empty. In the games where they were there, they were doing a different part of the same mission and that’s why I think in my part 1 video at 4:30 when the enemies didn’t detect me, it was because they were there for the other person. When I go in that building and come out, the enemies I just killed going in are back there again waiting to ambush me as I come out. It’s not that great and even though I like having someone with me, it sort of doesn’t feel like they are really with me as they are just playing their own objectives in my map that I am about to do.

Destiny Beta Gameplay

Most of the missions as well was just me alone completing them and I didn’t feel like I needed a teammate. I took down the wizard in my part 2 video and the boss in the part 1 video all by myself and didn’t feel any threat of dying there. It would have been even more easier if I had a team member. I understand that levels will get harder in as you progress through it and by the end of the Beta I did notice a jump in enemies health. But if the AI is the same the whole way through I can just keep running back behind walls or boxes and just regenerate my health, which regenerates very quickly!

Overall I didn’t really feel anything for this game. It’s very nice to look at and it’s a great graphical achievement. It’s definitely fun to create a character and I like the options of different classes. But I just didn’t have that much fun playing the game. It was way to easy, the enemies and the AI wasn’t interesting and the narration from Peter Dinklage added nothing for me to feel anything during the game. I just can’t get into this game and I don’t know if I ever will. It’s just not my type of game I guess, it’s not an overall bad game, this is not a bad game in any way it is better than most. I just don’t think it’s a great game.

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I really enjoyed the Beta, but I saw its flaws. The visuals were great, character creation was good enough, and I like the classes, Titan all day! I have to agree with Peter Dinklage being underwhelming as a “ghost”, he sounded kind of lifeless (pun intended). I also attribute that the the sub-par writing in the game: dialogue wasn’t all that good. Destiny didn’t give out too much plot, but what I gleamed from the Traveler, Light, and “Darkness” set-up seems very generic. The Darkness just seems like a vague blanket term, which allows the devs to continually supply different races of aliens to fight. Also, with that in mind… what ARE the Awoken and Exo? There were a lot of game modes, which I liked. Strike and the mutiplayer modes should keep me busy. Explore was cool, but the missions were pretty generic and fetch quest-y. The Tower is too small, Bungie should take a look at how MMO’s do villages or common areas and use some of their social features. Yeah, the missions were pretty easy. I was able to blitz through them without much hassle. I’m not sure if enemies are more difficult when you have more players i.e. borderlands. Speaking of Borderlands, I loved the loot inclusion as well as being able to hold up to 9 weapons and armor in each category. With stats, armor and weapon upgrades with use. Although I found the sub-class skill tree to be perplexing. What’s the point in having a “skill tree” if you can only unlock upgrades in a certain order. I loved borderlands, so I will end up playing Destiny for a long time.

BryanWeatherall

Matt DiMuzio Yeah, I see what you mean. I’m still curious to see how the missions change on later world’s that you visit. I forgot to mention when I wrote this, but the online stability seemed pretty good. I didn’t see any lag in there when shooting at things or looking at the other players and what they were doing.

I don’t really know what the Awoken and Exo are. I’m pretty sure they made the story generic so you get lot’s of activities and game modes out of it and like you said, aliens as well to put in those levels. I still don’t really get what “the wizard” is supposed to be.

I do think though there is a lot of stuff in destiny to keep people busy for along time. It’s probably more fun playing with other people though than by yourself like I did.